


Thoughts from the Setee

by Multifandomfuckfest



Category: What We Did On Our Holiday
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandomfuckfest/pseuds/Multifandomfuckfest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While stopped at the hotel Doug, unable to sleep, watches over his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts from the Setee

He sits on the hotel settee unable to sleep. Before him his family, or what is left of them. Gone are the fun childhood smiles of his precious Lotti, Jess and Mickey. He didn't want to argue in front of them again. It never was the intention. Nor was that night he betrayed his family in a heated moment. Oh how he wishes he could take it back.   
There are many things Doug McLeod wishes he could change. But wishes are meant for birthday candles and eyelashes, the stuff for children. Adult consequences is what plagues his world now. Abi so peaceful beside their children. It crushes his soul. How could he have been such a nutter to forsake her? Or even worst deny the love he still has for her. If not as his wife then as the mother of his children. All the memories, kissing on the park bench, the perfect proposal ruined by unexpected rain, and the birth of their children documented with scars and scratches across their now full house makes him desperate for an inch of it back.  
Here he was losing everything close to him. His father would be gone within the year. And now at his own doing he isolated everyone he's ever cared about. The pain is just too real. It taunts him in the darkness when he's alone in bed. He hasn't had the nerve to tell Abi that she is gone, that she never compared, that a history like theirs can never be erased. He thought she was suffocating him but it was the other way around. She always deserved better. He was never good enough. Maybe that's why he sought to destroy what they had as some sort of self punishment. To prove what he always knew.   
If he could just say sorry. Maybe it would make a difference. Drop the solicitor he had so quickly grabbed when she aired the dirty D word and give her everything she deserved. Would things change? Would it be the best for his children? Possibly. But things would never go back to the way they were. This new Leon had moved in on his family, bedding his wife and soon his children would be calling him Dad. They'd get married and she'd be happy. Happy without him. They all would be.   
Doug knows he should have come alone, or just brought the kids. But the one thing he couldn't tell Abi was this was as much for him as it was for his dad. He needed one more time, even if brief where they would all be happy. Granted it hadn't happened yet. Desperately he hoped that as they arrived in Scotland their worries would melt away and they could have one last time as a family. To experience what he ruined. He needed just one more weekend to pretend that they weren't over yet. To pretend he wasn't a failure.  
To say he wasn't worried about his children was an understatement. That is after all why on this cool spring night Doug was awake while they were not. He hoped that despite the mistakes he had made his children could overcome the destruction he brought upon them. Lottie and her journal, Jess and her new friendship with rocks and Mickey with his Oden obsession were at the top of Doug's list. Was Micky enamored with Oden because he lacked a proper male role model? Had Doug failed that badly? And Jess her stealing and best friend the brick, all because he was no longer at home and she was starving for attention. Attention that Lottie had stepped up and had to give the wee ones because he was no longer there. So much pressure he had put upon her that night when he made the wrong choice. Pressure that she could only let go by writing in her journal.   
As the sun began to rise he could see his family for what they were. Perfect. And no longer in need of him. Of his transgressions. When sirens broke through the morning haze stirring his youngest he watched her sit up spying him. Without a word she stood creeping from the bed and pausing only for her newest best friend. Jess scurried across the carpet over to him crawling into his lap as Doug pulled the bed clothes around them.  
"I miss you daddy," she murmured half asleep.   
Doug swallowed hard pulling his precious baby girl closer to him, "I miss you too," he confessed placing a kiss on her golden locks, "I miss you all," he whispered as she snuggled into his chest. Looking down at her angelic face he sighed heavily, "I'm so sorry," Doug apologized knowing that it would never be enough and stood watch over his slumbering family knowing it would be the last time he could.


End file.
